Radeon X1650 Pro 512MB, full potential?

Question

I've had a Radeon X1650 pro 512MB PCI-E video card since about January, and it's worked fine. But games like Battlefield 2, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Crysis are giving me a pretty low fps of somewhere around 25 fps on their lowest settings during combat. I currently have 1 GB of DDR RAM and I've been thinking of upgrading for a while. Would it help my fps much or at all?

Answer 1

Not really. RAM doesn't affect fps.

Get a good GPU. The nVidia 8800 gts 320 mb is a good buy for the money, although the new 8800 gt may be better for the money.

For a good shooter game, you want at least 30+ fps, preferably 40+, or even 50+. I personally don't consider <30 fps very playable.

Answer 2

Your card is quite decent for Battlefield 2 BUT not Crysis. Crysis is a very demanding game that requires the high end cards.
You need at least the 8800GT to play Crysis at acceptable level.

Even some high end cards struggle with Crysis:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/13603/6

Answer 3

upgrade the GPU and you'll definitely see a big improvement. I use a 320MB 8800GTS, which runs almost any game silky smooth except CRYSIS ARGggh. Don't worry about Crysis though, unless you're running SLI'ed 8800GT's and a Quad Core, at 1280x1024, a lot of machines have trouble with it.